The picturesque town of Hertingen in the South of Germany hosted the 2017 European Individual Grass Track Final, with the event producing some very spectacular and close racing throughout Saturday evening.
The 3,000 spectators who attended the event were treated to a number of ‘wheel to wheel’ races with riders not giving a centimetre during the 12 qualify heats. Once all the points had been totalled, the field of the top 16 point scoring riders were allocated to the three (C, B and A) Finals.
With two ‘last chance’ places available for the winner and seconded place riders (in the B Final), to qualify through to the all-important A Final, racing was again extremely competitive with Edward Kennet (ACU) and home German rider Christian Hurlshorst (DMSB) finally managing to gain these two important places. This enabled them to join the defending Champion, Brit James Shanes, former multi European Stephan Katt, Hynek Stichauer (ACCR) and fellow Brit, Andrew Appleton (ACU) for the ‘winner takes all’ A Final.
With all six riders keen to make a successful start and first corner, it was James Shanes who leapt from the tapes to race almost unchallenged to the chequered flag, chased all the way by fellow Englishmen Andrew Appleton and Edward Kennett.
This was a great success for the trio of English riders who made history by being the first three riders from the same Federation in the FIM European Individual Grass Track championship.
All results on FIM Europe website:
http://www.fim-europe.eu/events/423